Sunday, 10 May 2015

Last weekend, on my way back to Stirling, I decided to stop off at the Ayrshire/Galloway border to try and find where the local pair of Grey Wagtails were nesting this year. Luckily for me they hadn’t moved far from last year’s nest site….less than 3 metres away!

I was pleasantly surprised, upon checking the contents of the new nest, to find that the nest contained four very new, very fluffy chicks and one addled egg.

The new nest is in a much better position than last year’s, being much higher up, well camouflaged and out of reach of the hungry Otters that lurk along the river. There’s plenty of Otter spraint all along this section of the river and I’m sure they wouldn’t think twice about a protein rich snack!

The only downside to this soft, hairy cup of fluffy newborns? It was full to the brim with fleas! After a very brief check of the contents of the nest, I was left with no less than 27 extremely itchy flea bites on my shoulder. They clearly lured me in under a false pretence of cuteness!

Friday, 8 May 2015

A couple of days ago I had a quick check of the garden nest boxes at home and was surprised to see that not a lot of progress had been made since the last check over a week ago.The birds seem to be in no particular hurry to complete their nests. I’ve had 4 nests being build for over 3 weeks now! They must be waiting for something, what I am not sure of as the weather is good and there are plenty of flies and grubs around. I can see from the BTO nesting forum that a lot of other nest recorders across the UK are seeing the same thing so at least my lot aren’t any lazier than the rest!

Good news is that one of the Blue tits has started to incubate. There’s something slightly cute and innocent looking about Blue Tits when they’re nesting…..and not trying to bite and scratch you as they do when being ringed!

It was a case of good timing for the nesting Starlings at home as the chicks were just the right size for ringing on the day I had to leave to go back to Stirling (exam time boo!). Happy to say that all 5 chicks have survived to this stage and are doing well, the adults seem to be bringing back plenty of leatherjackets for them.

My Da was happy to ring his first Starlings and seemed quite chuffed that they all decided to poo on me instead of him .

It’s great to be able to help my Da out with his ring training whilst I’m at home, although I don’t think he’s keen on being my assistant!

The gulls seem to be picking up the pace now down at the main study site for The Galloway Common Gull Study. After checking a section of the site last week I was pleased to find 12 new nests and a couple of complete clutches. If these complete clutches are successful through to hatching then we can expect the first chicks at the end of the month….good thing the colour rings are on order!

Number 15: my favourite nest – always in the same place every year. This pair of Common gulls choose to nest way out on a small headland away from the main colony. I think they do it just to watch me traipse across the bog and climb over the numerous fences and ditches. I swear I can hear them faintly laughing as they watch!

There only 1 week left to go now until the project page on Kickstarter closes. I can’t stress enough how grateful I am for your support and backing of this project, the funding is vital. We’re very close to the minimum funding target now, which is great news! Due to Kickstarter rules, if the minimum amount is not reached then the project gets zero funding! So I ask if you could spare a few minutes to check out the funding page and share it with your friends. Thank you : )

Sunday, 3 May 2015

It feels like I’ve been waiting for the birds to start getting down to it for ages now and finally, now that we are in to May, it seems that they have started to get things going. Today we had our first chicks in the form of 5 fluffy balls of the Starling variety in the Starling box at home.

Apart from the Starlings though (with a second pair nesting in our old Tawny owl box) the garden is still very quite with just a few boxes occupied, mostly with partially built nests,one with a single tit egg and another with a Great tit sitting on a full clutch. I'm hoping that things pick up soon and it looks promising as I watched Dunnocks chasing each other around and had three Chiffchaffs singing in the garden today. Our House Martins also look to be on eggs now – I always enjoy having our chittering summer visitors whizz around the garden.

This year the Great Tits decided to nest in the tiny Coal Tit box instead of their usual, much lager box, which now sits empty - strange birds!

I have seven Oystercatcher nests on the go at the minute, all with eggs laid in last week. Hoping to ring some cute chicks in the next few weeks (I have to be girly sometimes!). Most of my Oystercatcher nests are at Stirling University where they nest in good numbers around the main buildings and also on the flat roofs.

Probably the most exciting find for me so far was on Friday when I made a preliminary visit to my main Common Gull study site and was ever so excited to find the first eggs of the year!

We found three nests with one egg each and one fully built. It’ll soon get very busy for the gulls….and me!

The first eggs are particularly exciting for me as I have just started a new colour ring project on Scottish breeding Common Gull. I am currently trying to raise funds for the project on Kickstarter as ,with it being the first year of the project, the start up costs are significant. I’d really appreciate you taking the time to check out my Kickstarter page, share with friends and any donation is really appreciated as raising funds for the project is vital for its success.

Sunday, 26 April 2015

Recently I posted a quick update about a new project I am embarking on and in this post I am going to explain a little bit more about the project and why I want to study Scottish breeding Common Gulls.

Common Gulls in The UK

The Galloway Common Gull Study aims to investigate the breeding biology and migratory behaviour of this stunning and charismatic bird. The Common gull larus canus, also referred to as Mew gull, is amber listed with JNCC's Birds of Conservation Concern which means that they are priority species for both conservation and research to discover why they are facing harder times.

The UK holds approximately 10% of the world's population of breeding Common Gull. As Common Gulls do not breed until 3 years old, little is known of the movements of sub-adults within the 3 years before they begin to breed. This study aims to answer that question by using individually coded colour rings to track the movements of both the adults and young from the breeding colonies. As the breeding biology of the Common Gull is understudied in the UK, by carrying out this study, we may learn new previously undiscovered information about the behaviour of this often overlooked species.

Many adults and a significant number of chicks are metal ringed in the UK every year but as metal ringing provides relatively little return in comparison to colour ringing, little has been discovered about the differences between adult and juvenile dispersal of Common Gulls away from the breeding colony.

Through BTO recoveries of birds ringed both within the UK and in the rest of Europe we know that Common Gulls regularly migrate between the UK and Scandinavia but most of these birds are likely to be ringed as adults. A similar project to the this, run in the North-East of Scotland, recently had a Common Gull, ringed as a chick, recovered in Spain which is only the UK's second record for this species despite (at the time) 94,916 Common Gulls being ringed in the UK - See Here.

It is clear that more work is needed in order to understand the movements of juveniles up until the age of which they begin to breed, and indeed to discover where these juveniles end up choosing to breed whether it be in their natal colony that they were born in or somewhere further afield.

The Galloway Study

To find out more about the breeding biology and dispersal of the Common Gull this study will monitor a number of breeding colonies within Galloway. At the main two study sites a sample number of nests will be regularly monitored for the BTO's Nest Record Scheme and adults at these sites will also be caught and colour marked. Colour marking allows individual birds to be tracked in the field without the need to recapture them.

Common Gull Nest (2014)

At all of the sites two visits will be made during the latter part of the breeding season to ring the chicks and colour mark as many as possible. Only chicks big enough to safely hold a colour mark will have the marks added. Due to the cost of colour ringing this fundraising page is vital in allowing the study to colour mark as many birds as possible as the higher the number of birds marked the greater quality of information yielded from future observations.

In order to track the bird's movements the study shall rely upon a number of different sources from observations from members of the study group initially to then reaching out to the public and birders and ringers alike for their sightings. It is vital that through advertisement on social media and the likes that people are made aware of the project so that they know to keep a look out for our marked birds and also where they can direct their sightings. All sightings for this project can be sent to: crbirds'@'hotmail.com. Upon receiving such sightings a member of the study team shall reply back to the observer with a full life history of the bird. The study is very grateful for any observation or sighting sent in.

Kickstarter

As this is the first year of the study there are some significant costs involved in setting up and so I have started a Kickstarter fundraising page and I'd really appreciate any donations and shares/links to the page from my friends, followers and supporters. There are also some really exciting rewards up for grabs when you donate and any donation is so greatly appreciated and will enable the study to reach its’ full potential.

Thursday, 23 April 2015

Yesterday I was given the go ahead from the BTO to start a very exciting new project - to study the site fidelity and juvenile dispersal of Scottish breeding Common Gull. I will be conducting this study by monitoring a number of sites in Galloway with a combined effort of nest recording and colour ringing.

As this is the first year of the study there are some significant costs involved and so I have started a Kickstarter fundraising page and I'd really appreciate any donations and shares/links to the page from my friends, followers and supporters. There is a lot more information about the project on the website (see the link below) and there are also some really exciting rewards up for grabs when you donate.

Tuesday, 21 April 2015

On Monday afternoon I was joined by members of my new ringing team to try out a new catching site at Stirling University….just ootside my flat. I had been feeding up the site with a mixture of seed and nuts for a few weeks in hope of attracting a good variety of birds and was excited to try it out. This was the first time that I’d been mist netting properly since recovering from a bad hand injury last summer so I was a little nervous at first but luckily I now have a very supportive team of ringers around me who are incredibly encouraging and helpful towards me which in turn helps me gain my confidence back.

We soon erected four mist nets and retreated to our ringing station to await our first feathered visitors…which didn’t take long. We soon had a good number of birds coming through including a nice partially leucistic male Blackbird which has been submitted to the BTO’s Abnormal Plumage Survey

As we had a good steady flow of birds throughout the afternoon I was able to learn some new ageing and sexing techniques from Chris, who is a very experienced and knowledgeable ringer. It’s very interesting to ring with other ringers as everyone has their own approach to ageing and sexing. I feel that the more experience gained with other ringers, the better the depth of knowledge you gather – which overall makes for a better ringer.

Male Goldcrest

A great afternoon was had ringing over 60 birds of 13 species including a bonnie pair of Long-tailed tits.

Mr & Mrs

A couple of highlights for myself included my first Great Spotted Woodpecker……shortly followed his mate…

Male on the left, female on right.

Stunning plumage

Ouch….the male Woodpecker was in a particularly grumpy mood!

Another personal highlight was ringing my first Nuthatch!

Nuthatch are not so common North of the border but are doing well around the Stirling area, breeding on campus in recent years.

This male Nuthatch was particularly special for me as whilst living in Wales many years ago I caught an unringed Nuthatch but as my Dad was visiting at the time I though I would give it to him to ring, thinking that another would come along sooner or later…….4 years later!!!

All in all we enjoyed a delightful afternoon’s ringing and will definitely be back soon but with birds starting to nest and migrants returning it will soon be time for me to get the old nesting stick and be prepared for the funny looks off passers by as I clamber about in the bushes and up trees in search of nests for the BTO’s Nest Record Scheme.

Monday, 2 February 2015

It's been almost a year since I was sat at my bedroom window at university catching Siskins - See Here. In the end I ringed over 350 and now have had time to play with Google Earth and map the controls/recoveries. I managed to catch 16 controls between March and May last year and as you can see from the map below they came from all over the UK.

Since metal ringing, a number of Siskins I ringed have been recovered elsewhere, mostly within Scotland.

So far this Winter Siskin numbers at garden feeders have been exceptionally low according to the BTO’s Garden Birdwatch. I’m hoping that they will return soon as I'm counting the days until they return to the university and find my new feeding station. I now have my mist net endorsement and so am ready and waiting for them! Hopefully I will get some more interesting controls and recoveries. Fingers crossed!

Excuse the ‘naked’ nails but I had to share the little beauty, one of the many juveniles I caught in the garden back home (Stranraer) this summer. Such colourful characters.

Thursday, 27 March 2014

I’ve been waiting all Winter for the return of our Redpoll flock in Stranraer. It’s been a very quiet Winter for them here with few Siskin and Goldfinch. The usual Blackcap (or Fatcaps as we call them) arrived in early November as usual and appear to have not moved off the suet feeder since arriving…hence the name!

Normally at this time of the year we have a flock of 300+ Redpoll in the garden noisly feeding away on Niger seed. Last year however was very different as the flock which we would expect to have arrived in late October, to be gone by early April, instead turned up at the end of April and stayed on until the beginning of June, some even staying on to breed!

Last Winter was fantastic for ringing in the garden and either in anticipation of the flock arriving back soon or in memory of what used to be I’ve decided to create a post about last Spring’s ‘Roaming Redpolls’

As I had a short break (just 1 week) between University finishing and and my annual summer migration to Manchester last May I took the opportunity for some garden ringing (with members from North Solway Ringing Group). In 3 sessions we managed to newly ring over 200 Redpoll which is a new garden record.

As well as the Redpoll we also caught a good number of Siskin and Goldfinch, catching our first (freshly out of the nest) juvenile Siskin of the year.

Along with the 200+ Redpoll we also processed 18 controls (birds ringed elsewhere). 2 of these controls were particularly special as they were from Brussels! The first foreign controls ever caught in our garden (see here for map).

I recently received the details for the other controls and they revealed an interesting North Westerly movement (see map).

All-in-all it was a very successful week of garden ringing and definitely worth the 40kg odd of Niger seed they consumed…or threw on the ground!

Just today via Twitter I heard that some Redpoll have started to appear in a garden not to far away – could this be the very first ‘scouts’ of our flock? Will they all return again? Or will this Winter score a blank?! Only time will tell but the new traps have been built, plenty of rings are in stock and the garage is piled high with Niger seed…so we’re ready for them!

Special thanks to the BTO for the ringing details and to Kane for the UK recovery map.

About Me

I am currently a C permit bird ringer and nest recorder and have been since March 2010 I currently work on colour ringing projects on Reed Warbler, Coot and Black-headed Gull. I'm studying Ecology at the University of Stirling.
If you have any comments or questions about my blog then feel free to drop me an email.